Mount Everest accident kills nine

Kathmandu: At least nine Nepalese climbing guides have been killed and five others are missing after an avalanche struck Mount Everest, officials say, in the worst accident to hit the world's highest peak.

He said the guides were all Nepalese and were preparing the route to the summit before the climbing season which kicks off later in April.

The avalanche occurred early on Friday at an altitude of about 5800 metres in an area known as the "popcorn field" which lies on the route into the treacherous Khumbu icefall.

Kathmandu-based mountaineering expert Elizabeth Hawley, considered the world's leading authority on Himalayan climbing, said the avalanche was the most deadly single accident in the history of modern mountaineering on the peak.

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In 1996, eight people from two expeditions were killed, said Ms Hawley, in a tragedy immortalised in the best-selling book Into Thin Air.

The accident underscores the huge risks taken by sherpa guides, who carry tents, bring food supplies, repair ladders and fix ropes to help foreign climbers summit the 8848-metre peak successfully.

More than 300 people have died on Everest since the first successful ascent to the summit by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

As concerns of overcrowding on the "roof of the world" have grown, Nepal's government earlier announced plans to double the number of climbing ropes on congested ice walls near the summit of Everest to reduce traffic and risks.

Authorities have also stationed soldiers and police at the Everest base camp starting this month, so that climbers can approach officers in case of any trouble, following a brawl between commercial climbers and Nepalese guides last year.